Fresh Mint Ice Cream

I recently splurged on the ice cream maker of my dreams, which immediately became my new favorite toy. I’ve been selling my unwanted clothes on eBay and buying kitchen supplies with the extra cash, which is a pretty good representation of how my interests have changed since I started this blog. (My clothes still fit, if that’s what you’re wondering!)

Remember my spearmint from a couple of months back? The spearmint makes its recipe début today along with my first ice cream recipe, of which there will be many more. Mint lends such a refreshing quality to cool drinks and frozen treats that it seemed the perfect choice for ice cream. When I found a recipe for mint ice cream in my mom’s May 2010 issue of Cooking Light, I knew I had to try it.

I made several adjustments to the magazine’s instructions and ended up with delicately flavored, light mint ice cream. My recipe calls for 2% milk, turbinado sugar, and only two egg yolks, compared to more typical recipes that use tons of cream, cups and cups of sugar, and six eggs.

The end result is light and slightly icy like sorbet, but as sweet and satisfying as gelato. The mint flavor tastes like the real deal, because it is. For once, I recommend against topping this dessert with chocolate. It overwhelms the flavor.

Ingredients

2 cups 2% milk

1 cup half-and-half

20 fresh mint leaves

¾ cups turbinado (raw) sugar

dash of salt

2 large egg yolks

1 teaspoon real vanilla extract

Instructions

Combine milk, half-and-half and mint leaves in a medium sized, heavy sauce pan or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Heat until tiny bubbles form around the edge (which should be about 180 degrees). Do not let it boil!

Remove from heat, cover and let stand for ten minutes. That gives the mint flavor time to steep.

Uncover it and pour the mixture through a colander into a medium bowl. Press the mint leaves slightly with a big spoon to get all the flavor. Discard the leaves, and pour the liquid back into your pan.

In a new bowl, combine sugar, salt and egg yolks. Stir with a whisk until the mixture is pale.

Gradually add half of the milk mixture to the egg mixture, while stirring constantly with a whisk.

Pour the egg/milk mixture back into the pan with the rest of the milk.

Cook over medium-low heat for about two minutes (or to 160 degrees), stirring constantly.

Pour the mixture into a bowl. Stir in the vanilla extract.

Place the bowl in the fridge until the mixture cools completely, stirring occasionally.

Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

If you’d like the ice cream to harden up a little more, freeze it for a couple of hours.

Notes

I originally advised adding a couple of tablespoons of vodka to the cream mixture per David Lebovitz‘s suggestion, but it turns out you don’t need any in this recipe. It’s scoopable straight from the freezer, without any extra help from alcohol.

Yields roughly 1 quart of frozen ice cream.

▸ Nutrition Information

The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

Did you make this recipe?

Please let me know how it turned out for you! Leave a comment below and share a picture on Instagram with the hashtag #cookieandkate.

The magazine says that this basic, light custard recipe tastes great with other flavors, like ginger, cinnamon or coconut. I can’t wait to try the rest!

I have spearmint, peppermint, and something called “chocolate mint” which actually tastes like chocolate mint, I need you to drive to Tulsa right now with that little ice cream machine of yours and make me some please! – jes

Love the photos. I want to make this for friends and wanted to know when you add the vanilla? I didn’t see it listed in the instructions. Also, if I wanted to add vodka, should I do this while it’s chilling in the fridge or add it right before I place it in the ice cream maker? Thanks!

The recipe looks great, I love that it’s light and I would really like to try it. I have lots of mint in my garden, but I don’t have an ice cream maker. Could it be done by hand? I have a Kenwood mixmaster??

I would love to add some chocolate chunks/chips too!! I’ve tried a few brands and they always feel so hard compared to the ones that come in ice creams that I buy at the store… Do you have a recommendation for chocolate chips?

Good question, Paula! I think that chocolate chips are just too large and will freeze into hard chunks. I’d suggest buying a chocolate bar and chopping it into fine pieces with a chef’s knife. Hope that works!

Hi, that is a good question. Half-and-half is a milk product with about 12.5 percent butterfat content. Maybe you can find something similar in the Czech Republic? One resource I found online says you can make half-and-half by combining four parts whole milk with one part heavy cream.

Thank you so much! I used a coffee cream (about 12 percent) and the ice cream is delicious. The whole family asks for recipe! I really enjoy browsing your pages and I also hope that you’ll continue being such a god cook :-)

Hi Mau, I believe the recipe yields about 1.5 quarts of ice cream, which is equivalent to a small tub of ice cream at the store. Not sure how many people are coming to your party so it’s hard for me to say!

If I used 35% cream, what would be the difference (besides obviously a higher fat content)? Most ice cream recipes I find require more egg yolks but I like your recipe and was just curious if using cream would affect the consistency of the finished product. Thanks!

Hi Kate,
I thought you might like to know that this mint ice cream has become our family’s all time favorite. My husband called me from the grocery store today to ask what ingredients we would need to make it for our July 4th celebration tomorrow. To my surprise I could quote him the recipe without looking it up, even though this will be the first time we’ll be making it this summer. It’s so light and fresh, deliciously creamy, and extremely satisfying. Thank you for your wonderful contribution to our family’s food traditions – I can’t wait to have some tomorrow!

This recipe works great! I think I may have used twice as many mint leaves, just because I had them on hand. I was nervous because other ice cream custard recipes mentioned that the liquid should thicken after adding the eggs and heating, but mine still seemed pretty light. It turned out not to matter the ice cream machine did the job anyway! I added some chopped up dark chocolate towards the last couple of minutes. Hooray for fresh MINT!